Dining
If you are spending Christmas in Budapest and want to treat yourself, most of the city’s top hotels are laying on a special spread for the season.
Festive dining doesn’t stop at the luxury downtown Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where the Deak St. Kitchen offers a three-course Christmas menu (9,500 HUF plus 12% service) from noon until 10pm on 24 and 25 December. With acoustic music planned for evening, diners can tuck into a main of veal-stuffed cabbage or grilled hake. Also from 12:30pm on 25 December, the stunning Kupola Lounge at the Ritz-Carlton is offering Christmas Day Brunch, a sumptuous three-course set menu (11,500-20,000 HUF plus 10% service) with a little live jazz and children’s entertainment thrown in. For more details, see here.
The charmingly decorated InterContinental offers a Christmas Eve dinner (18,900-24,900 HUF plus 12% service) at its Corso restaurant from 7pm with live music, a carving station, Sauska sparkling wine and mains such as deer loin and duck leg. Then comes Christmas brunch (14,900-16,900 HUF plus 12% service) on 25-26 December of wild-boar stew, roast turkey breast or shoulder of roast lamb from the carving station. For more details, see here.
Christmas dinner (29,900-44,400 HUF plus 12% service) at the KOLLÁZS Brasserie & Bar, signature restaurant of the landmark Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace overlooking Chain Bridge involves five courses and live music by the Wonderland Band. Festivities take place from 6pm to 10pm, 24 and 25 December. For more details, see here.
Christmas at the Corinthia Hotel Budapest means movies as well as meals – seasonal films screen twice a day until 27 December. What could be better than Christmas Eve with The Grinch? As for food, you can look forward to a Christmas Eve buffet dinner (18,500-20,000 HUF plus 12% service) and a brunch (13,000-14,000 HUF plus 12% service) and dinner (15,500-17,000 HUF plus 12% service) on Christmas Day in the Brasserie & Atrium. For more details, see here.
Right on Fashion Street, Deák Ferenc utca, the ÉS Bisztró at the Kempinski is offering a Christmas Eve dinner (21,800-27,600 HUF plus 12% service) of three or five courses featuring mains duck breast or fillet of John Dory, plus live music. All starts at 6pm. For more details, see here.
Down by the Danube, the Christmas Eve menu (23,500 HUF/drinks 7,500 HUF plus 12% service) at the Paris Budapest restaurant of the Sofitel features the cuisine of Stéphane Rémon, spotlighting saddle of roast lamb or cacao cod and sea lettuce. Diners can settle down from 7pm. For more details, see here.
For an alternative take on Christmas dinner, gay-friendly café/bar Why Not? on waterfront Belgrád rakpart welcomes everyone with festive eats from 4pm on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. On the menu, you can choose from Sicilian fish soup (2,190 HUF), stuffed turkey breast (3,490 HUF) and boar stew (5,190 HUF). After the feast, sink a few drinks until 2am. For more details, see here.
Drinking
Most bars and clubs in Budapest close on Christmas Eve – but not all. Budapest’s recent realisation that Christmas might actually be fun is never better illustrated than on the Grand Boulevard, whose many bars operate either on the 24th or the 25th. Some you might not frequent on any other occasion but, as they say, any port in a storm. The busiest stretch between Blaha Lujza tér and Oktogon should turn up an open hostelry or three, particularly around the Király utca and Wesselényi utca tram stops.
Expat-friendly sports-bar chain Stifler, with two branches on the Grand Boulevard, closes on the 24th but re-opens at noon on the 25th – and, obviously, there’s a full agenda of English football fixtures to look forward to on the 26th, Fulham-Wolves the early kick-off.
Other drinking options for 24 December include Lámpás on Dob utca in District VII. As traditional as mistletoe, this bohemian cellar has always made a point of keeping the party going on Christmas Eve. Setting up at 9pm, Tilos Rádió DJ Adam Salman will be spinning the tunes in this intimate underground space. Admission is free, bar prices are insultingly low and the pogácsa scones are legendary. What more do you need to know? Oh yes, closing time is 2am, after which the Grand Boulevard is a stagger away. More details.
Also traditional is the Christmas Eve Puszi Party, previously staged at the Mika Tivadar Mulató and Fogasház. This year, the venue is the TRIP boat, when from 9pm to 11pm, DJ Lupin Tégé spins vinyl and those free of familial duties get down. There will be a Christmas Eve get-together at communal centre Auróra on the street of the same name in District VIII. Drinks will be flowing between 8pm and 3am.
While the party vortex of the Gozsdu Udvar stays silent on Christmas Eve, you can start the party early on Christmas Day when the Spíler Gozsdu and Spíler Shanghai open from 10.30am. Though closed on 24 December, nearby ruin bar, the Fogas Ház, kicks into action from 10pm on 25 and 25 December with the party run-up to NYE.
Finally, if you’d like a rewarding drink after a hectic last minute’s shopping on Christmas Eve, then the Hard Rock Café on the corner of the Vörösmarty tér market stays open until 4pm (kitchen until 3pm). Bar and kitchen then re-open from noon on Christmas Day. For more details, see here.
Bathing
Could there be better way to spend Christmas than soaking in Budapest’s unique spa waters and relaxing? The main baths – the ornate Széchenyi in the City Park, the Rudas on the Buda embankment, the iconic Gellért – stay open on Christmas Eve until 2pm. All reopen at 10am on Christmas Day and operate until 6pm while for Boxing Day, Sunday hours apply – in the case of the Széchenyi, this means until 10pm. For more details, see here.
Shopping
Budapest’s central Christmas markets stay open on 24, 25 and 26 December, though all close early on Christmas Eve. For the main one on Vörösmarty tér, stalls start packing up before 2pm, food outlets before 3pm. On 25 and 26 December, opening hours are 10am-6pm for hot snacks and mulled wine, noon-6pm for souvenirs. Round the corner by the Basilica, the market runs between 10am and 2pm on Christmas Eve, and from 11am on 25 and 26 December. At nearby Városháza Park, it’s 10am-2pm for Christmas Eve, noon-6pm for Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
If you just need essentials, you should find a ciggies and booze at a tobacco outlet – the Nemzeti Dohánybolt at Leonardo Da Vinci utca 23 near Corvin sétány in District IX stays open over Christmas. For groceries, the Roni ABC at Bethlen Gábor utca 8 near Keleti station operates non-stop during the holiday period. For other opening hours of Roni outlets, see here.
